We have been anxiously awaiting “The Zookeeper’s Wife” ever since Jessica Chastain’s 2015 guest feature for The Hollywood Reporter. Long before its release, Niki Caro’s film was labeled a unique and joyful experience purely for its gender balance behind the scenes. Surely a film that had such a female-positive experience behind the camera must also have one in front of it.
Women and Hollywood spoke with director Niki Caro about building a zoo from the ground up, properly representing history, and how to weave femininity throughout it all.
“The Zookeeper’s Wife” opens in theaters March 31.
W&H: What made you want to do this movie?
NC: The Zabinskis, Antonina Zabinski. The fact that I had never heard this story before, and, honestly, how inspiring it was that this couple — ordinary, Polish Christians — would do what they did for no other reason than it was the right thing to do. I really felt their radical humanity and decency were worth talking about and putting that idea into the world.
As a filmmaker, I was really inspired by Antonina and her courage, care, and compassion, but also the fact that she was both so feminine and so strong. That really informed all of the filmmaking. It’s a profoundly feminine film on every level, and that was a great thing to explore and a way that I felt I could contribute to this genre in a fresh way.
W&H: Do you use the word “feminine” in a political sense at all? As in feminine/feminist?
NC: Yes, always!
W&H: Okay, because sometimes “feminine” can be [seen as] less political and more about looks instead of intention.
NC: Well, I want to be very clear that “feminine” has often, or invariably, been equated with weakness — and it is not, as we know. I think what is new is the idea that you can be both feminine and strong.
W&H: Well, it’s always been there. People just never believed it.
NC: That’s right, and for me, this is the frontier of filmmaking: I can speak about these things and express them in a very feminine way from a point of strength, confidence, and femininity.
W&H: Right. It’s not that women or feminine or anything is “less than.” It is just what it is.
NC: Absolutely.
W&H: I’m with you on that. So, you became involved in the process after a version of the script was complete.
NC: There was a first draft, and it was literally the best first 20 pages of any script I’d ever read.
W&H: Wow. You were hooked right away.
NC: It blew my mind. I then came aboard and worked with screenwriter Angela Workman on subsequent drafts.
W&H: What sensibility did you bring to the script to make it something that you wanted to shoot?
NC: Lack of sentimentality. Commitment to authenticity, to specificity, to emotion, to realism. For instance, I couldn’t conceive of making an authentic movie out of this real story and use fake animals. It’s old school filmmaking: the animal work is mostly in-camera. It’s pretty muscular storytelling, actually, in an old-school way.
W&H: How many drafts did you work on before you felt like you were ready?
NC: Angela would be a better person to speak to this, but I think there were probably about four.
W&H: When did Jessica Chastain come aboard?
NC: Very early on. She was everybody’s first choice, and she said yes right away. She told me she wouldn’t have been able to bear seeing the movie with another actress in that role.
W&H: Earlier you were talking about the animals. It’s something that’s always a challenge for a director because they don’t listen to instructions in the way that we hope.
NC: Well, that’s not my experience. My philosophy is sort of 180 degrees opposite from that. I never asked of an animal anything that it wouldn’t do naturally, and so the process is quite painstaking. It should be very careful and respectful, and always very safe. We shot the animal species by species and took our time so that they were free to react and respond in a natural way.
W&H: What was it like making a zoo come to life?
NC: Amazing. Totally amazing.
W&H: Did you want to take it home?
NC: Well, we didn’t move into a preexisting zoo. We built it from scratch. We created it out of a neglected park right in downtown Prague, and it was a wondrous thing to watch come into being.
We shot the opening of the movie in pre-production because I couldn’t be convinced that the weather would hold until late September (when we began). So, we shot all of that over two days in pre-production, and those were the only two days when the zoo was in its pristine state.
It had to go through a number of changes during the years of the war. I was so sad when we had to break it. It was horrible. It’s a very subtle level of the story about the loss of beauty.
W&H: There was a profound shift in how you watch the movie once the animals are assaulted. It’s stark — you feel like you’re in a new place.
NC: That’s right. It’s interesting, isn’t it, how animals sort of open up and expand our humanity? It’s a way of entering back into this genre that we know so well in a fresh way. Somehow, we feel more for animals, and that allows us to feel for the rest of the creatures, human and otherwise.
W&H: I remember back to when I first saw your work in “Whale Rider.” It’s one of my favorite movies of all time.
NC: Thank you. It’s mine, too. It was actually a joy to make.
W&H: It’s just how in-touch [the film is] with the water, the whales, and everything.
NC: There’s nothing in Mother Nature, or human nature, that isn’t incredibly fascinating to me.
W&H: What was the biggest challenge in making the movie aside from what we’ve already discussed?
NC: In my heart, it was honoring so many, the millions that died while celebrating the 300 or so that were saved. Creating something that was worthy of that story.
W&H: You’re one of the success stories. You’re a working director. You have many potential things happening for you. But give us a sense of what life’s like being a woman director in 2017.
NC: Personally, I carry a lot of rage and survivor guilt because I am one of the very few fortunate ones. It’s incredibly depressing, the criminal waste of talent and skill. I’m very grateful. I’m very fortunate that I’m working. But, I’m very aware of the many that aren’t and that their talent, strengths, and voices are going to waste. That enrages me, and if I can kick the door open a little more, that’s what I’m going to do.
I can’t change the situation — I’m not a studio head — in any other way than to make successful movies. In that way, I hope to encourage those that hire directors to hire more people like me. Fifty percent of the workforce is being neglected.
W&H: Absolutely. You had a lot of women working on this film. Was that normal for you?
NC: It’s not even by design — it’s just that they’re the best people for the job.
W&H: Right. But people are always surprised.
NC: Right. But the more women you have on a movie set, the more humane the environment. It’s not rocket science.
W&H: No, it’s really not.
NC: Right? You know. I’m preaching to the choir.
W&H: You have a really good way of looking at it, and it’s important to continue these conversations as we all push towards equality. How do you make the decisions about the movies that you want to make and pursue?
NC: I pursue, voraciously, the ones that speak to me and those I feel I can make a meaningful contribution to. After “Whale Rider,” I was literally sent every script that involved a small girl or a large mammal. My representatives used to joke that I was good for very little, because so little of what was out there I found meaningful.
As a filmmaker, you invest so much. Every movie is at least a year to two years of my more-than-full-time commitment. I’m a parent and a partner. It really comes down to paying the bills, but it also must be something worthy of taking me away from that time with my family.
I’m really happy with the movies [I’ve done] so far; I feel very good about them insofar as I have a choice, because I often don’t. I’m very happy with the stories I’ve told and the way they’ve been told, and I hope to continue to work with the same set of priorities as the canvas gets bigger.
W&H: You’re about to enter an even smaller club of the $100 Million Women. What excites you about that?
NC: It’s going to give me a chance to flex my filmmaking muscles in a much bigger way. Let me at it; I’m very, very ready to do that. It’s very exciting, particularly given that story [Disney’s live-action “Mulan”]. Of all the princesses, she’s the greatest.
Transcribed by Kelsey Moore.
